Source: Your Computer – December 1983
Your Computer was a popular home computer magazine published in the U.K. in the 1980s. This particular issue is pretty massive with well over 300 pages. Looking at the table of contents, I thought it odd that the first thing listed is on page 74. I though maybe I was missing a page. However, it looks like this magazine (or at least this issue) is front-loaded with ads…so basically the first 73 pages are all advertisements.
After all of the ads, this magazine starts off with sections common to many magazines, including competition info, editorial, letters and news. Competitions were common in this type of magazine though they seemed to be a much bigger deal in the U.K. than in the U.S. This one features computer software and hardware prizes of course. Near the end of the magazine, the results of the previous contest are given with the prize being an Atari 600XL. The Editorial and Letters are combined into one section and feature solutions to technical problems on the Spectrum and VIC-20. The news includes info about new hardware from Japan and a new expansion for the Electron (an unknown computer in the U.S.).
Since this is a December issue, there is a lot of Christmas themed content. This includes a virtual Christmas Fair with mini-reviews and previews of Christmas presents for your computer as well as a Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come themed preview of new products coming in 1984. Also included is some Christmas music for the BBC Micro.
Most of the rest of the magazine is split into different sections for different computers and features mostly type-in programs.
For the Spectrum there are a few type-in programs including a drawing program.
For the VIC-20 there are some fancy programming tricks in the form of code examples to include in your own programs.
For the Atari 8-bit there is a programming article on interrupts and how to use them.
For the BBC there is a type-in game called BBC Fruitworm.
For the Commodore 64 we also have a couple of type-in programs.
For the ZX-81 a type in program is provided that will let you run ZX-81 programs on your Spectrum…so I guess it is really more of a Spectrum program despite being in the ZX-81 section. There is also code for a bubble sort provided.
For reference, the Sinclair Spectrum and Commodore 64 were in the process of becoming the most popular computers in the U.K. at this time. The ZX-81 and VIC-20 were their respective older cousins and probably had a bigger installed base still. The Atari 8-bit computer line was available in the U.K. but it was quite expensive and not very popular because of it. There were also some other UK centric computers like the BBC that had a fair amount of popularity.
